


The Mechanic

by supergirrl



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Leia is a matchmaker, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 09:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergirrl/pseuds/supergirrl
Summary: Finn needs a mechanic. Fortunately, his boss Leia has the perfect one in mind.





	The Mechanic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunatique (lunafana)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunafana/gifts).



> Hello! This is my first-ever Finn/Rey fic, and I was very excited to write for such an amazing pairing. I love Finn and Rey (as individual characters and as a couple) so much and I hope that is evident here. Lunatique was very open-ended in terms of requests, so I decided to go with a modern AU meet-cute.

When you worked with Leia Organa for as long as Finn had, you got used to her quirks. She could face down any mob boss or big-shot attorney in court without breaking, but she still insisted that any bugs found in the office were carefully captured and released outside, unharmed. Her writing was some of the best Finn had ever read, yet her texts typically contained more emojis than words. Yet no matter how strange her suggestions seemed, there was always a good reason for them. So when she had urged him to take his car to an obscure little garage on the other side of town for repairs, he went along with it.

His phone’s GPS led him to a small red brick building in an old neighborhood, one that the non-profit he worked for was striving to protect from gentrification.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

The door was open, so Finn stepped in and looked around for any signs of life. It had the air of a once-bustling place that had fallen by the wayside; everything was clean and meticulously cared for, yet the shop was empty. Unlike many of the other mechanics Finn had visited, this one seemed devoid of photos showing scantily clad women bent over motorcycles or cars, which he appreciated. Two of his coworkers-turned-friends, Rose and Jessika, had told him how uncomfortable those kinds of pictures made them when they took their cars for repairs, and he wouldn’t have felt right supporting a business that so overtly objectified women.

Finn thought he was alone, aside from an enormous fluffy grey-and-white cat lounging on the counter. At the sound of his voice, the cat landed on the floor with a thump and trotted over to him, rubbing up against his legs and purring.

As he bent down to scratch its ears, he noticed a pair of boots sticking out from beneath the car and gently tapped one of them. The person fixing the vehicle rolled out, and for a moment Finn was speechless.

He had expected someone-well, older, and probably male. And definitely not a gorgeous woman in her mid-twenties. She seemed equally stunned, staring up at him with beautiful brown eyes, and all he could think was, _Wow._

She had headphones in her ears, which explained why she hadn’t heard him come in.

He offered her a hand up, and wasn’t surprised by the strength of the fingers clasped around his.

Finn realized that they were still just staring at one another, and neither of them had spoken a word yet, so he decided to introduce himself. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have mentioned Leia’s name-it felt too much like namedropping for him-, but for whatever reason, Leia had been extremely insistent that he bring her up.

“Um, hi. I’m Finn, I work with Leia Organa, and she recommended that I have you fix my car.” Even as the words came out of his mouth he thought they sounded incredibly awkward, but it didn’t seem to matter, because her face seemed to light up even more.

“I’m Rey, and I’ve heard so much about you! Aunt Leia talks about you all the time-all the amazing things you’ve done with her, how smart you are and the people you’ve helped…”

Her voice trailed off, the awe evident in her face, and Finn knew he was blushing. This type of gratitude usually came from sweet elderly people or grateful kids, not stunning women his own age.

“Thank you, I’m just trying to help. So you’re Leia’s niece?” Mentally he tried to connect Leia’s stories of a spitfire niece who spent her days tinkering on machines with the young woman standing before him.

“Yes, my father is her twin. My mom passed when I was little, and my dad traveled a lot for work, so she and Uncle Han practically raised me.”

“So Kylo must be your cousin.” He tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible. Surely Leia wouldn’t have sent him here if her niece was anything like her errant son, but he still had no way of knowing how Rey felt about him.

Rey pulled a face that made her opinion on Kylo very clear. “Unfortunately, we are related, but I’ve only seen him once in the last ten years. He didn’t even come to his father’s funeral, though he had the nerve to turn up here the next day, trying to challenge Han’s will.”

“He-what?” Finn’s opinion of Kylo couldn’t have been much worse, but this seemed low, even for him.

“Yeah,” There was a hard edge to Rey’s voice that hadn’t been there before. “He came with some of his gross friends, like that ginger creep Hux, and tried to intimidate me to get me to sign it over, said that the shop should belong to him and I couldn’t run it on my own.”

“What did you do?” The police were ridiculously corrupt, and most of them took money from Kylo, so they would have been no help.

She gave him a sharp, mischievous grin that reminded him of Leia.

“I ran them off. Apparently they didn’t know that pretty much everything in this shop can be used as a weapon. And Artoo helped, of course.” She gave the cat a fond pat, and he gave a delighted squeak.

Finn imagined Rey swinging a crowbar or tire iron at her recalcitrant cousin, then burst out laughing. “I wish I could have been there to see that.”

Her smile turned somewhat bittersweet. “It was pretty great. But unfortunately he doesn’t give up that easily, and they’ve scared off most of my customers. Now it’s pretty much just old friends of Uncle Han and Uncle Lando who keep me going, and that’s just barely. He doesn’t even want the garage, he just wants the land, so he can demolish it and put in some tacky chain.”

“I’m so sorry, Rey. Can I do anything to help?” This was the kind of thing that made him so glad for his chosen profession, so grateful that he could push back against people like Kylo and protect ones like Rey, who were just trying to live in peace.

“No, but thank you, you’re sweet. Now, tell me about your car.”

Sensing she didn’t want to talk about it anymore, Finn showed her the dents all along the cab, the scratches gouged into the paint and the smashed rear windshield. To even an inexperienced eye, it was clearly intentional, and Finn had a pretty good idea who had caused it, even though his neighbor had interrupted the vandals before they could finish the job.

“Wow,” Rey said, taking in the extensive damage. “Someone really did a number on this poor baby. Any idea who?”

“Actually, probably your cousin, or at least someone who works for him.” Quickly Finn outlined the story for her: a company with a history of exploiting workers and pollution had tried to open a plant in the city, in a historically black neighborhood located on the ecologically sensitive river. Their organization had fought to keep them out, and Finn had worked for months to get a judge to deny the company the necessary permits to set up shop. Finn had celebrated with the rest of his co-workers, but some people-including Kylo, who apparently had stood to make a lot of money from this plant-were very unhappy. Apparently they had decided to take that unhappiness out on his car. Finn was angry about the damage, of course, but he knew that this was just petty retaliation because they had been defeated. The neighborhood was safe, and that was all that mattered.

“So how much will this cost me?” Finn had decent insurance, thankfully, but he still wasn’t excited about his premiums going up because of this.

Rey shook her head. She had been mostly silent while he told the story, but he could tell it had infuriated her. “It’s on the house.”

Finn didn’t know much about cars, but it was obvious that this would not be a quick or easy repair. “Are you sure?”

“What you do is so important! People like you are saving our city, and you’re a hero. Let me show my gratitude for what you do.” She was so sincere, so earnest, and he wondered how someone like her could possibly share grandparents with scum like Kylo.

“Rey, no-I can’t let you do that. At least let me pay for your time.” Especially after hearing-and seeing for himself-how slow business seemed to be, he didn’t want to take away from her meager income.

She said something so quick he couldn’t catch it, and had to ask her to repeat herself, and she said, still very quickly, “You could take me to dinner?”

“What?” In the minute it took him to process what she’d said, her face fell, and she started to turn away, embarrassed and clearly thinking that he’d rejected her.

“I mean, yes! Yes, I would love to take you out. Are you free tonight?” He knew it was a little eager, but since she had asked him out first, it didn’t seem strange.

Rey smiled again, shyly this time. “Yes, absolutely. Uh, should I change into something else?” She asked, gesturing down at her baggy, oil-stained jumpsuit. “It doesn’t really work for…well, anything besides fixing cars.”

He laughed. “Nah, you look great. And I know the perfect place.”

Actually, he could think of many places he wanted to take her, but he had a feeling that they would have a chance to try them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
